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London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

cnn.com

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Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#21

Post by smashah »

evgen wrote: post #17
blindriver wrote: post #10

Seems like a national security issue if there’s a single point of failure a few miles away that can take down one of Europe’s largest airports and global air travel.

Few people actually include necessary infrastructure into their threat model and almost no one is willing to pay the cost of building effective redundancy into the system. I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation. And no, it is not a national security issue. There are three other airports in the London region, plus RAF Norholt and RAF Kenly i…

Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy, what is with the dismissive attitude?

I don't imagine an american being so dismissive about JFK being taken offline.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#22

Post by gambiting »

Devilspawn6666 wrote: post #19
gambiting wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all been privatized and they don't care about anything other than maintaing profits so of course we're seeing the effects now. It's also why every single water provider in the UK is dumping raw sewage into our rivers and when the government tries to make them fix it they cry about how that will eat into their profits and how it's unfair.

Nope... The UK electricity grid is nationalised - it's run by the National Energy System Operator (NESO).

The top level grid - yes. Regional operators are private.

https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/energy

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#24

Post by evgen »

smashah wrote: post #21
evgen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people actually include necessary infrastructure into their threat model and almost no one is willing to pay the cost of building effective redundancy into the system. I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation. And no, it is not a national security issue. There are three other airports in the London region, plus RAF Norholt and RAF Kenly i…

Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy, what is with the dismissive attitude? I don't imagine an american being so dismissive about JFK being taken offline.

A significant part of the economy perhaps, but 'national security threat' is a somewhat higher bar IMHO. LHR has a role of convenience, but not necessity. If JFK was shut down for a day or two and had limited operations for another week it would be inconvenient but would barely register in the national economic stats. I am on a flight heading out of Heathrow on Sunday for work travel and have booked an alternative out of Gatwick just in case. Inconvenient, but not a massive problem.

What will be telling here is how quickly things adapt to the disruption. I expect to feel more impact from the loss of power to businesses in the surrounding area that are involved in air shipment than in the flight disruptions (e.g. cold chain logistics and inventory management for just-in-time processes that warehouse near the airport.)

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#25

Post by d1sxeyes »

smashah wrote: post #21
evgen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people actually include necessary infrastructure into their threat model and almost no one is willing to pay the cost of building effective redundancy into the system. I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation. And no, it is not a national security issue. There are three other airports in the London region, plus RAF Norholt and RAF Kenly i…

Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy, what is with the dismissive attitude? I don't imagine an american being so dismissive about JFK being taken offline.

I mean sure it's expensive, but economic harm (unless it's intentional and large-scale) is not really seen as a national security issue in the UK.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#26

Post by benterix »

evgen wrote: post #17
blindriver wrote: post #10

Seems like a national security issue if there’s a single point of failure a few miles away that can take down one of Europe’s largest airports and global air travel.

Few people actually include necessary infrastructure into their threat model and almost no one is willing to pay the cost of building effective redundancy into the system. I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation. And no, it is not a national security issue. There are three other airports in the London region, plus RAF Norholt and RAF Kenly i…

> I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation.

So basically this is what Putin is trying to do - find vulnerable points and attack them. For now, creating disruption without human casualties.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#28

Post by benterix »

hackerbeat wrote: post #23
blindriver wrote: post #10

Seems like a national security issue if there’s a single point of failure a few miles away that can take down one of Europe’s largest airports and global air travel.

[flagged]

It might well be, but you don't have any proof of that. In Lithuania it took months of investigations to catch the culprits, analyze all evidence and make that statement. I can imagine in the UK it can take even more.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#29

Post by traceroute66 »

blindriver wrote: post #10

Seems like a national security issue if there’s a single point of failure a few miles away that can take down one of Europe’s largest airports and global air travel.

> Seems like a national security issue if there’s a single point of failure

No. Its not.

Its the fact that the decades of under-investment in power distribution infrastructure is coming home to roost.

Its no secret there's little to no "fat" in the UK grid system. Hence it has difficulty coping with black-swan events such as this.

Anyone who buys datacentre space in London knows the reason prices have gone through the roof in recent years. Its becasue the grid simply cannot get the extra capacity to where it is needed. And this is before energy prices started rising due to the UK's electricity being mostly dependent on gas (previous governments having sold off gas-storage facilities to build houses on the land instead).

That's why its also a pain in the backside to build new banks of EV fast chargers anywhere in the UK. Getting the power there involves long, protracted, discussions with the grid followed by payments of large amounts of money and a written promise to the grid that you agree to load-shedding at any time if necessary.

I suspect you will find its not a single point of failure either. Its just that Hayes is a high-demand area, so see above for lack of excess capacity .... if one site goes boom, the other will struggle to take on 100% load.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#30

Post by izacus »

blindriver wrote: post #10

Seems like a national security issue if there’s a single point of failure a few miles away that can take down one of Europe’s largest airports and global air travel.

Heathrow isn't the only airport near London so redundancy is already built
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